Posts tagged ‘handsets’

Heard of Kazam? Until recently, neither had we – but there’s a chance that this handset brand could be make a big splash in 2014.

Kazam offers three different ranges in its handsets – the Trooper at the bottom, the Tornado at the top, and the Thunder in the middle, and each is differentiated by the number of processor cores it uses, two (Trooper), four (Thunder) and eight (Tornado). Within that each model is differentiated by screen size, as indicated in the name. Simples.

Right now LTE handset support is limited in the main to top-of-the-range models, but with the new Thunder2 4.5L, newcomer’s Kazam is taking a different approach.

Kazam is the offspring of two ex-HTC execs and in a briefing last week they were keen to extol the virtues of this anti ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, though conversely it could be accused of taking a throwing everything out there and see what sticks approach.

The selling point of the brand is not the technology, but rather the service and support – with a one-year, one-time replacement programme for a smashed screen, (avoiding people using smashed screens for months on end) and ‘Kazam Rescue’, where one of its support staff will remote access your phone when requested to help fix problems.

Curiously, the Thunder2 4.5L is the only LTE handset in the range – but the reason for this is simple. Kazam is a Mediatek chipset shop, but MT LTE chipsets are only now being readied. As such, the Thunder2 LTE is the only one in the range to use Qualcomm – a Snapdragon 400. The 4.5in screen has an unexceptional 854 x 480p resolution, a basic 8GB of internal memory and 1GB of RAM – all John Smith’s no nonsense stuff, enlivened purely by the tri-band 800MHz, 1800MHz, 2.6GHz LTE support.

This though is exactly what could make it a winner. Aside from LTE the specs might be far from headline grabbing, and from our hands on, ‘thinnest and lightest’ will not be troubling the marketing campaign either – but what we have here is a phone that will do everything anyone could need to do right now – browse the web, take pictures and engage with social media, at a very low price (TBC).

LTE will make it all work smoothly and attractively so for anyone moving up form a feature phone, this will be a revelation, without the expense, and that has to be a good thing.

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The ‘gadgetosphere’*, the fetishist tech blogs and sites obsessed with the minutiae of the latest hardware, have been fairly harsh on the Samsung Galaxy S5. While Apple has previously the one to take flack for failing to reinvent the smartphone wheel, as it used to seem to do so effortlessly, it’s now Samsung that is getting grief.

Its latest flagship phone, the S5, is bigger, fatter, heavier and just too sameier* compared to the Galaxy S4, which itself wasn’t that much of a leap compared to the S3. Oh noes.

Mariappan Chanachayai, senior manager, Packet One, Malaysia is speaking in the LTE Evolution track on Day One of the LTE Asia conference is taking place on the 18th-19th September 2013 at the Suntec, Singapore. Ahead of the show we speak to him about how the transition to LTE is progressing for P1 and learn his thoughts in monetisation, Joyn, VoLTE and LTE handsets.

What have been the main developments and major milestones for you over the last 12 months with regards to LTE?

P1 was awarded 20MHz on the 2.6GHz spectrum band to roll out TD-LTE in December 2012. We have issued a request for proposal (RFP) and are in the process of selecting a vendor. As P1’s WiMAX platform on the 2.3GHz band is hardware and software upgradeable to offer TD-LTE it is important for us to ensure our TD-LTE network carries new features and has a higher capability system. P1 has been active since 2011 to trial and showcase the technology and has showcased ease of transitioning between WiMAX and TDD LTE alongside ZTE Corporation. The demonstration, performed on the 2.3GHz spectrum, achieved 130Mbps on a 20MHz band during the peak downlink throughput in a cell.